What do Berlin and Barcelona have in common? Besides both beginning with “B,” not much, or so one would think, given that the former is a bastion of the uniquely German brand of staid intellectualism and the latter the unmistakably Catalonian species of cosmopolitan high style. But don’t tell that to either Berlin’s Mashallah Design or Barcelona’s Apparatu. For under the auspices of ceramics expert Xavier Mañosa, the two firms teamed up to create the “Superfax Series,” a collaborative collection that included ceramic stools as well as ceramic lights, like the Scotch Club spotlight, a singular piece formed of seven different hanging lamps, each of which features fabulously faceted faces and sides (to the tune of 75 per) in a kind of burnt amber/rusted orange glass. The assemblage creates all kinds of interesting reflectivity, very much living up to Mañosa’s intention to create “creative tension between the worlds of handicraft, industry, and art.”

Scotch Club. Desigened by Apparatu and Mashallah Design.

The very same artist also claims to “prefer to avoid luxury or exclusivity in favor of pieces which are inspired by and integrated in our everyday lives.” If Scotch Club were in fact inspired by the everyday, its reference point(s) must have been either the similarly faceted visual apparatus of the common housefly, or the best of the oversized disco lights from the age of Saturday Night Fever. Either way, Scotch Club is visually striking as well as profoundly utilitarian. Because of the extraordinary number of reflective surfaces, the piece promises endless opportunities for targeted illumination–a simple twist re-arranges the ensemble, as the individual pendants find a new and temporarily-fixed position with every adjustment and thus (very like a finely-tuned version of one of those disco balls), a new object to shine on. Whether said object is a print by one of Mañosa’s compatriots (Miró or Dalí would do nicely), or a modernist sculpture by Berlin’s Georg Kolbe, is entirely up to you.